City and County of San Francisco v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

7 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, et al., Case No. 19-cv-04717-PJH 8 Case No. 19-cv-04975-PJH Plaintiffs, Case No. 19-cv-04980-PJH 9 v. 10 ORDER DENYING MOTIONS FOR U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION LEAVE TO FILE AMICI BRIEFS 11 SERVICES, et al.,

12 Defendants. 13

14 Before the court are twenty motions for leave to file amici curiae briefs. See Case 15 No. 19-cv-04717-PJH, Dkts. 70, 77, 86, 90, 99 & 100; Case No. 19-cv-04975-PJH, 16 Dkts. 64, 70, 71, 80, 86, 98 & 99; Case No. 19-cv-04980-PJH, Dkts. 76, 85, 86, 96, 107, 17 109 & 110. 18 “The district court has broad discretion to appoint amici curiae.” Hoptowit v. Ray, 19 682 F.2d 1237, 1260 (9th Cir. 1982). “There are no strict prerequisites that must be 20 established prior to qualifying for amicus status; an individual or entity seeking to appear 21 as amicus must merely make a showing that his/its participation is useful to or otherwise 22 desirable to the court.” In re Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Antitrust Litig., 23 Case No. 02-md-01486-PJH, 2007 WL 2022026, at *1 (N.D. Cal. July 9, 2007). “District 24 courts frequently welcome amicus briefs from non-parties concerning legal issues that 25 have potential ramifications beyond the parties directly involved or if the amicus has 26 ‘unique information or perspective that can help the court beyond the help that the 27 lawyers for the parties are able to provide.’” NGV Gaming, Ltd. v. Upstream Point 1 F. Supp. 2d 59, 62 (D.D.C. 2003)). 2 The court hereby DENIES each of the above-identified motions for leave to file an 3 amicus curiae brief, prior to this court’s order on the pending motions for preliminary 4 injunction. With respect to the motions for preliminary injunction, the proposed amici 5 briefs appear to be duplicative and cumulative of arguments advanced by the parties and 6 amici that have already filed briefs in these actions. Moreover, the court could not 7 conceivably attend to each of the newly-filed briefs prior the hearing date on plaintiffs’ 8 motions for preliminary injunction, scheduled for October 2, 2019. This order does not 9 preclude movants from seeking leave to file amici briefs during later stages of litigation. 10 IT IS SO ORDERED. 11 Dated: September 16, 2019 12 PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON 13 United States District Judge

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